


Entry for the seventeenth day of the eight month of the second year of the Eien era.

by Trismegistus (Lebateleur)



Category: Onmyouji | The Yin-Yang Master (Movies)
Genre: Ayakashi, Blow Jobs, Buddies, Friends to Lovers, Heian Period, Kitsune, M/M, Magic, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Supernatural Elements, Whump, Youkai
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-17
Updated: 2020-12-17
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:02:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,223
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28122786
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lebateleur/pseuds/Trismegistus
Summary: On the seventh day of the eight month in the second year of the Eien era, the divination master Abe no Seimei selected an auspicious day to perform the Rite of the Fiery Star in order to protect the Ichijo Emperor and his principal wife from the negative influence of a celestial aberration.—Entry in the diary of the Chief Imperial Secretary Fujiwara no Sanesuke
Relationships: Abe no Seimei/Minamoto no Hiromasa
Comments: 12
Kudos: 31
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Entry for the seventeenth day of the eight month of the second year of the Eien era.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [tabi_jeff](https://archiveofourown.org/users/tabi_jeff/gifts).



“Seimei,” said Minamoto no Hiromasa. “This is unlike you.” For indeed, Seimei had once more allowed the conversation to lapse into silence, as though he could think of nothing to say in response to Hiromasa's words. Hiromasa knew this could hardly be the case; Seimei was always ready with an ironic observation on the doings of this-or-that official or of life at court. But today, it seemed Seimei was distracted, barely attending to the flow of their banter. It was remarkable. He leaned across the low table. “Something troubles you. What is it?”

“Mm,” Seimei’s response was noncommittal, and his expression gave away nothing. But his fingers traced an arc along the table’s lacquered surface.

“The movements of the heavens are troubling,” he said at last. 

Hiromasa blinked. Seimei spoke in an offhand manner, as if the matter were of no real concern. Yet it was unusual for his friend to admit even this much to Hiromasa, who could not possibly be expected to understand the significance of celestial portents. The situation must be truly grave for Seimei to express his concerns so openly.

“Yes, but aren't you going to perform some rite this evening, alongside the senior priest from Mount Hiei?” It was only natural, thought Hiromasa, that Seimei should keenly feel the heavy responsibility of guarding the emperor's person from baleful celestial influences. Still, he had no doubt that however serious the matter, it would be no match for his friend’s unrivaled abilities. He smiled at Seimei, eyes glowing. “In the face of your combined efforts, what misfortune could befall the Imperial Person?”

At this, Seimei glanced at him, an expression of doubt writ uncharacteristically plain upon his features. But only one moment later, he wiped it away with an irritated twitch of his graceful, arching brows. “I’m not worried about _him,_ ” he said, “The signs are clear on that matter...and yet, today they seemed to indicate a new danger—”

But at that moment, Hiromasa did not care to learn what that danger might be. “Seimei!” he exclaimed. “You really must stop referring to the Imperial Person in such inappropriate terms.” In reality, he had little hope that his stern remonstrance would have any more effect upon Seimei this time than previously, yet principle nevertheless demanded that he correct his friend’s appalling disregard for protocol.

Seimei gave Hiromasa a wry look, saying nothing.

But over the course of their acquaintance Hiromasa had grown comfortable enough to stand his ground when circumstances demanded. “Seimei,” he said, giving his friend a serious look of his own. “Despite the lightness of your words, whose safety, in all the capital—in all the country—could be of greater concern than that of the Imperial Person's himself?”

“Whose indeed?” said Seimei. 

"But surely, even if such a person were to exist," said Hiromasa, entirely convinced that such a person did not, "The heavens themselves would surely indicate who they were."

"They do not," Seimei muttered, as if furious to admit it. "Or rather, there are indications, but I do not understand them. The Fiery Star draws dangerously close to Regulus, foretelling discord between the emperor and his principal wife; on that the signs are clear, and the effects are easy enough to counteract by taking appropriate measures. But even so, no matter how many times I recast the celestial forecast, there is a new element that doesn't fit. It seems some danger still remains."

Hiromasa could not possibly hope to offer reassurance in the face of this chilling declaration, and so they fell once more into silence. Finally, the sun began to set and long shadows stretched across the garden. Hiromasa rose as the first stars began to glimmer in the evening sky. He wondered if one of them was the mysterious portent that had so troubled his friend.

“In any event…” he said at last.

“In any event,” said Seimei in a distant and distracted fashion. Suddenly he looked up, eyes focusing intently on Hiromasa’s face. “Hiromasa. The portents tonight _are_ troubling, for all I don't yet understand them. Quickly return to your estate, and take care upon the way.”

It was unlike Seimei to see him off so seriously, without any hint of teasing or jest, and Hiromasa did not know how to respond to his uncharacteristic concern. “I will,” he said, simply, and rose to depart. 

As usual, the gate to Seimei’s estate opened of its own accord at Hiromasa’s approach, although no one else was present in the garden. He paused as he stepped out into the lane, and looked back toward the pavilion. Seimei sat at the table on the veranda, his face dimly visible in the light of a brazier. He had unrolled a scroll and was closely studying its contents, brow furrowed.

Hiromasa stood a moment longer, and then stepped across the threshold. The gate closed silently behind him and his attendants hurriedly bundled him into his waiting carriage. No sooner was Hiromasa seated within than Sanetoki goaded the oxen into movement, and they set out for home.

The streets were deserted, as if everyone who lived in the capital had somehow overheard Seimei’s ominous warning. The creak of the carriage wheels echoed strangely from the walls of the houses, and even the oxen seemed aware of the desolate atmosphere as they clopped heavily down the empty streets, refusing to low even when Sanetoki switched them across the haunches with a willow branch. It was only natural that Hiromasa’s mood was soon affected by these oppressive circumstances. The air felt heavy and stifling.

He drew back the curtains and peered outside. Night had fallen in earnest, and their surroundings were barely visible by the light of the lantern that bobbed in Tadanobu’s hand. The walls of the buildings to either side all looked oddly similar, and it seemed as though the lanes and alleyways that bisected them stretched away forever in each direction, leading only into endless darkness. Discomfited by this eerie sensation, Hiromasa shuddered and withdrew back into the carriage.

Some while later he heard his attendants speaking urgently to one other in low voices, although he could not make out what they said. He poked his head out of the carriage once more. “Sanetoki, Tadanobu, what’s the matter?” A moment later, he too saw what troubled them.

The light of a single lantern flickered dimly ahead, bobbing toward them down the road.

Hiromasa swallowed. There was nothing unusual about such a thing, he told himself sternly. It was surely a messenger on an errand from the outer palace, or some lord or other, on his way to a tryst at his lover’s estate. Yet all the same, there was something unsettling about the sight. 

Hiromasa’s attendants drew instinctively back toward the carriage; one of them, he heard, had begun to recite a prayer of salvation to Lord Amida under his breath. The light of their own lantern, which Tadanobu held in a trembling hand, made weird shadows dance in the boughs of a plum tree hanging over a nearby garden wall.

Suddenly the mysterious light reversed course, moving away from them back into the night. Hiromasa breathed a sigh of relief, but a moment later the frightened cry of a woman pierced the gloom. Heedless of the frantic objections of his attendants, he drew his sword and dashed into the darkness toward it.

Grasses snatched at his ankles and branches tangled in his robes as if the very earth itself was trying to hold him back. But Hiromasa was determined to come to the aid of whoever had made that plaintive sound. He shook himself free and plunged through the shadows toward the spot where the strange light yet flickered ahead. 

Shouldering between the boughs of two nearby trees, he found himself at a crossroads surrounded by tall, ancient pines. A carriage stood at the edge of the road some distance before him, fitted with fine silk curtains and an ornate, gilded roof from which hung a lantern shining faintly in the gloom. But no oxen were hitched to its yoke, and the attendants who should have accompanied it were nowhere to be seen. Hiromasa clutched the hilt of his sword tightly and stepped cautiously toward it. 

“Who—who’s there?” It was a woman’s voice, low and melodious despite her fear. Although he couldn’t even see her silhouette through the heavy hangings, Hiromasa knew instantly from her refined manner of speech that she must be a lady of uncommon grace and sensitivity. 

“Please,” he said gently. “There’s no cause for fear. I am Minamoto no Hiromasa. What has—?” 

He heard a muffled sob from behind the curtains.

“My lord, please take pity on me!” the lady cried a moment later. “Seven days ago, I left my estate in the Ninth Ward, telling the members of my household that I meant to make a pilgrimage to the Temple of Dharma Realization. In reality, I journeyed there to keep a tryst with my lover.” Her voice hitched pathetically on the final word.

“But when I arrived, only the priests were there to receive me.”

Hiromasa’s grip tightened upon the hilt of his sword. “Without question, your lover must have been set upon by mountain brigands on his way to the temple. Tell me which of the city’s gates he departed from. I will track them down and free him from their clutches myself!”

But his gallant words only seemed to deepen the lady’s misery. “Oh, if only that were true. It was not bandits who waylaid my lover, but the daughter of the Head of the Bureau of Records, whose charms stole past his affection for me as the cuckoo steals into the nightingale’s nest; he lies in the arms of his new mistress even as we speak.”

Hiromasa could only sigh upon hearing her poignant tale. Truly, love was as impermanent as the morning dew! “But then how did you come to be here, so far from either the Temple of Dharma Realization or the Ninth Ward?” he asked, breathless to learn how the lady's story had continued to unfold.

The pathos in her gentle voice struck Hiromasa to the marrow of his bones. “Having learned of my lover’s change of heart, I resolved to withdraw from the world. I was on my way to take religious vows at the Temple of Solitary Light when my carriage drove over a rut in the road, breaking an axle. I sent all of my retainers back to the capital for assistance, save one who remained to protect me. But he fled upon your approach, fearing you were a bandit come to rob us and then put us to the sword. Truly, I must have behaved abominably in a previous existence to have accrued such lamentable karma.”

Hearing the lady’s extraordinary tale of misfortune, Hiromasa could not help but be moved to sympathy by her woeful situation. “How lamentable indeed,” he exclaimed. “This surely cannot be allowed to stand. My lady,” he continued earnestly. “Please allow me to escort you back to your estate. You will be safe there, away from the night's dangers.”

She was silent for long moments, and when at last she spoke, her voice was as soft and clear as the evening air. “I am humbled to accept your assistance.” Hardly daring to breathe, Hiromasa drew back the curtain of her wagon, eager to get a glimpse of the woman whose moving story had aroused such sympathy within him, and whose grace and refinement would soon be lost to the world forever, shut away behind the walls of a nunnery until she passed into the next cycle of rebirth. 

She was beautiful. She was so beautiful, it seemed she glowed from within. 

Hiromasa remembered little of the journey to the lady’s estate, so captivated was he by her charms. He had a vague sense of having passed through an imposing gate into spacious grounds on which stood a tall pagoda and many stone lanterns. Once inside the main pavilion, the lady bade him relax. He reclined on richly embroidered cushions and sipped from a cup of the finest rice wine while she brought him countless delicacies arranged beautifully on lacquered bowls and trays.

Hiromasa took another sip of wine and set his glass shakily upon the table. His head was swimming; he must inadvertently have overindulged, he thought, although he could only remember having partaken of this single cup. He fumbled out a poetic allusion with which to complement the occasion and the lady’s hospitality, which was truly exceptional. Blushing, she hid her mouth behind a delicate white hand and rose, eyes demurely downcast, to fetch the jar of rice wine. 

She moved gracefully across the room, her magnificently colored robes whispering across the floor with the sound of the lonely wind sighing through bare boughs. At the very edge of hearing, Hiromasa thought he caught the sound of some commotion outside. “What was that?” he asked, trying to rise unsteadily to his feet. 

She hastened back to the table and refilled his cup, urging him all the while to not trouble himself, to sit. “It is no matter. No matter at all.”

_“—masa!”_

“No,” said Hiromasa slowly, trying to make sense of this nonsensical turn of events. “I heard…something.” Even now, the voice, strident with anxiety and fury, traveled faintly to his ears from the dark beyond the sliding doors, as if heard in a dream. 

“Do not trouble yourself, my lord. It’s only some small animal in the garden, or—or a drunken servant.”

“But I saw no servants,” said Hiromasa, who only now realized how strange it was that he had not seen a single page, or retainer, or lady-in-waiting since setting foot in the lady’s estate.

“My lord, please—” Ignoring every standard of correct behavior, the lady took his face in her hands, one long sleeve catching on the corner of the table. As he reached to steady her, Hiromasa caught sight of her figure, mirrored in the shallow cup of rice wine. Her reflection showed not a woman’s face, but a fox’s. 

_“Hiromasa!”_

Sudden torchlight, blinding. Hiromasa threw his sleeve up over his eyes to shield himself from the illumination. A putrid smell assailed his nostrils. He gagged violently and collapsed, not onto brocaded silk cushions, but a pile of leaves and filthy rags. Slime oozed beneath his fingers. His face was smeared with dirt and his mouth tasted of offal. Panic filled his mind.

Only the sight of Seimei kneeling before him, heedless of the filth that stained his beautiful robes, was enough to keep Hiromasa from madness.

He could not have said how they returned to Seimei’s estate. His mind was a blur of confusion and fear, leaving him so disoriented he could no longer tell east from west. 

“Mitsumushi!” Seimei called as soon as the walls of his estate came into sight, abandoning all decorum. “Mitsumushi, quickly,” he said again as they stepped through the gate and she came rushing toward them down the steps of the central pavilion, a dim white blur in the darkness. Seimei had him by one shoulder; Mitsumushi took him by the other. Together they guided him up the stairs and down a long wooden corridor into the interior of the house.

“Seimei,” he whispered. “She was—I—” But no words could describe the appalling memories that bloomed in his mind like mildew. He had taken his ease in a graveyard, seated on rags. He had eaten bark and moss, thinking them delicacies; he had sipped river water from a mouse’s skull. Having been exposed to such defilement, how could he ever hope to purge the impurities that now tainted him? 

“A fox, yes,” said Seimei, his mouth a tight line. “And _you_ were bewitched.” The room to which he led Hiromasa was surely his private study; chests and writing tables were scattered across the floor, and an elaborate altar stood against the far wall. Seimei left him standing in the middle of the room to collect several long strips of paper, inscribed with spells. 

Hiromasa had started to tremble violently by the time Seimei returned to begin arranging the spells about him on the floor. “She fed me ashes,” he said.

“And she would be feeding them to you still, if your attendants hadn’t had the presence of mind to run _here_ after you went chasing after foxlights. How could you have been so foolish? Didn’t I warn you to return home immediately, that the heavens themselves foretold danger tonight?”

Hiromasa could not argue against this correct accusation, but he was still moved to defend himself from Seimei’s reproachful words. “But she gave the cry of a woman in distress.” Seimei’s eyes flashed with exasperation at Hiromasa’s brave but ill-considered actions. “You are a good man, Hiromasa,” he said at last.

Hiromasa swallowed, dreading what he must ask next. “Seimei, am I cursed?”

Seimei gave a bark of laughter, eyes flashing once more. “No, not cursed, only polluted. And as far as that is concerned...” He untied the laces of Hiromasa’s hunting robes with deft fingers and gave the garments to Mitsumushi to burn. Naked, Hiromasa knelt before the altar as Seimei purified him with water and salt, chanting spells of banishment and cleansing in clipped, rapid syllables. The flames of the altar candles flared and guttered, sending strangely shaped shadows crawling from Hiromasa’s mouth and fingernails to slither across the floorboards, out through the sliding doors and into the darkness of the garden beyond.

Throughout it all, Hiromasa watched Seimei’s lips and felt himself as transfixed as he had been by the wiles of the fox woman. 

At last Seimei's final spell trailed into silence. Hiromasa felt like a winter garden scoured clean of leaves by the wind, and just as empty. He was shivering, although now only from the cold.

Seimei rose and returned a moment later to drape a heavy quilted robe over Hiromasa's shoulders. Hiromasa stood and mutely followed him from the study down a covered passageway to the pavilion's main chamber, almost bare save for a brazier and a sleeping platform surrounded by several elegantly painted screens.

He let Seimei guide him to the platform and collapsed gratefully upon it, feeling as though his legs would not carry him any further. "Rest, Hiromasa," said Seimei in a low voice. But Hiromasa was reluctant to let sleep claim him, fearful that if he did he would wake to find himself trapped once more within the fox woman's cruel illusion. 

"I need to dress my hair," he said thickly, raising himself to his knees upon the cotton quilts. He was suddenly conscious of how much of it had escaped its topknot, and he could hardly go to sleep with it coming unbound about his shoulders, as though he were some amorous river girl and not a court official at all. He raised his hands to his head. But his fingers were still shaking and he found he could not undo the silken cord that held his hair in place.

Seimei watched him for a time in silence. Then he crossed the room to an elegantly lacquered chest and withdrew a sandalwood comb, finely inlaid with tortoiseshell and mother-of-pearl. Hiromasa opened his mouth to demand that Seimei stop. It was unseemly for any but a household attendant to perform such a menial task, let alone a man of Seimei's rank. But it was as though he had been struck mute as Seimei pulled free his hair tie and slowly unwound his topknot, and in the end he raised no objection at all.

The comb moved slowly through Hiromasa's hair, its fine teeth picking apart the tangles and smoothing away the waves left by the hair cord. Seimei's bedding and the robe that Hiromasa still wore draped across his shoulders were thoroughly imbued with Seimei's perfume—a blend of aloe and resins used by no one else in the capital. Seated as he was beside Seimei, so close that Hiromasa need only raise his hand to touch Seimei's sleeve, it mingled with the scent of Seimei's skin. Hiromasa blinked and fought to bring order to his suddenly unruly thoughts.

He raised his eyes and met Seimei’s steady gaze. “Have you bewitched me too?” he breathed. 

The lulling movement of the comb through his hair stilled, and then began again.

"What reason would I have to do so?" Seimei asked lightly, but Hiromasa clearly understood the reproach in Seimei's words. He wanted to apologize, to tell Seimei that of course he had no reason, could have no reason in the world, but that Hiromasa wished he did, to say that even the most captivating beauties of the court, even the fox woman with all her charms, were no match for his extraordinary elegance. At the sight of Seimei kneeling before him in the darkened chamber, long hair still unbound like a shrine maiden's in the aftermath of the ritual he had performed, how could even Hiromasa, who had only just been cleansed of the danger of supernatural defilement, spare a thought for maintaining purity? Ignoring every standard of correct behavior, he took Seimei’s face in his hands.

Seimei froze. The comb tumbled from his fingers to clatter onto the floor. His hands tightened in Hiromasa's hair, then trailed through it like water to brush the robe from his shoulders. The cold night air should have set Hiromasa shivering, but Seimei's hands were hot wherever they touched his skin, making him writhe desperately beneath Seimei's heated palms.

He fumbled clumsily at Seimei's robes, but Seimei brushed his hands away, impatient, and pushed him onto his back upon the thick cotton quilts. Seimei's hands were warm, yes, but his mouth was fire, and at its touch Hiromasa gasped and moaned as though he were the youthful serving girl in some lady-in-waiting's romantic tale, and not a seasoned lover at all.

When Seimei took him into his mouth, he sobbed; surely he would spill himself at any moment. But Seimei was as skillful in the arts of the bed chamber as he was in matters of yin and yang, and no matter how desperately Hiromasa pleaded, Seimei allowed him no release. 

Hiromasa's hands fisted in Seimei's hair, traced his brows and jaw, clutched desperately at his shoulders until finally Seimei rose onto his knees and undressed, his silk robes sliding from the sleeping platform to pool on the floor below. Then he smoothly eased himself onto Hiromasa's rigid penis, head thrown back to expose his long, white throat, eyes slitted in the darkness.

Hiromasa moaned again, frantic, wanton, and gripped Seimei by the waist as he fucked himself on Hiromasa's cock with a dancer's confident grace. Hiromasa's head swam; he was disoriented, inarticulate with pleasure until at last, it overwhelmed him utterly.

Grey dawn light was brightening the world beyond the sliding doors when Seimei rose from the quilts. “Don’t go,” said Hiromasa, groping after him. 

"But I have no choice," said Seimei. "After all, how could I possibly ignore such urgent matters of state?"

“Surely it's no later than the second rabbit. What urgent matters of state could even exist at such an hour?”

"As for that," said Seimei, seating himself at his writing desk and shaking out his sleeves with a flourish—how, thought Hiromasa groggily, had he managed to dress himself in the space between one step and the next—"I must explain to the Bureau of Ceremonies why I failed to perform the Rite of the Fiery Star last night."

Hiromasa scrambled to hands and knees in the bedding, nearly choking on his tongue at Seimei's alarming pronouncement. 

"You—you failed to perform the Fiery Star rite? But the Imperial Person—”

“Was surely protected from any harm by the Hiei priest's efforts; otherwise, the entire capital would be in an uproar over it right now,” said Seimei dryly.

“Don’t even hint at such an inauspicious matter!” exclaimed Hiromasa reflexively. Between his residual sleepiness and Seimei's extraordinary utterances, he did not at all know what to think. "What could possibly be more important than ensuring the safety of the Imperial Person?"

At this, Seimei fixed Hiromasa with a pointed gaze, shaming him into silence.

“You’re a good man, Hiromasa,” he said at last. “And as I told you last night—even before I understood whom that troublesome portent indicated—there are men more worthy of protection than the emperor.

"Even," he continued, "when doing so will require me to write a tedious official report.” And then he laughed. 

Hiromasa tried to fix a stern expression upon his face, but eventually he could only laugh alongside his friend, whether with long-suffering resignation or relief, or some other emotion besides, he would not have said.

———

_According to the diary of Chief Imperial Secretary Fujiwara no Sanesuke, on the eighteenth day of the eight month in the second year of the Eien era, the divination master Abe no Seimei wrote an official letter of explanation laying out why he failed to perform the Rite of the Fiery Star for the Ichijo Emperor on the prescribed date. The diary does not record the reason for Seimei's negligence, perhaps suggesting that none but Seimei and those parties who were directly involved in the matter know why._

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Yuletide! Thank you for the chance to revisit these characters. I hope you enjoy this story of Hiromasa's brush with the supernatural world and what came after it.


End file.
